


Nonetheless True

by Nununununu



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crash Landing, Don't copy to another site, Everybody Lives, Feelings, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Panic Attacks, Peril, Post-Battle of Scarif, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Relationship, Rescue, Stranded, Touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24852775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nununununu/pseuds/Nununununu
Summary: “Oh kriff,” Bodhi gets out before the engine explodes.
Relationships: K-2SO/Bodhi Rook
Comments: 16
Kudos: 34
Collections: Turing Fest 2020





	Nonetheless True

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whalebone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalebone/gifts).



> For Whalebone, with thanks for the lovely prompts <3
> 
> TW for that crash landing and non-graphic near drowning (cut to after the fourth break (-), if readers want to skip). Also a non-graphic panic attack.
> 
> (Originally posted 30/06; date changed to match author reveals)

_“Oh kriff,”_ Bodhi gets out just before the engine explodes.

And then there’s quite a lot of interesting flying, K-2 wrangling with the overhead panel as it spits out fizzing sparks, the droid simultaneously hacking the ship’s failing systems to prevent it from summarily attempting to eject them into space. They’re losing both power and oxygen swiftly, alarms blaring, warning lights strobing as the remaining engine lets out a horrendous mechanical squeal until K-2 does – _something_ – and it stops sounding like it’s going to detonate.

Instead, it lets out a grating whine very much like a dirge.

“ _Kriff kriff kriff_ ,” Gritting his teeth, Bodhi works frantically to compensate for the lack of power, sending the ship into a swooping dive to evade incoming fire as their pursuers swerve after them, grappling with the increasingly unresponsive controls.

“Maintaining life support systems manually,” K-2 reports, optics flickering, “Shields at fifteen percent. Oh wait –” The ship judders under a barrage of shots, “Make that eight.” He tips his head to one side, “I was right when I commented earlier that this mission was progressing too easily. This is certainly more interesting.”

“I wouldn’t mind if it was a lit-little easier myself,” Flung nearly out of his seat at a hard blast, Bodhi’s head hits a hard edge, making him yelp.

“Shields down,” A durasteel hand closes over his shoulder, dragging him back down onto the chair and holding him there as the ship violently spins, buffeted by thick atmosphere as they plummet down towards the nearest planet, a looming green sphere.

“Th-thanks,” Fighting to get them both out of the spin and out of the enemy ship’s targets, Bodhi ignores the feeling of warm blood trickling down from his forehead, “Kriff, if they get in just one more hit –”

“I suppose our lives will become considerably less complicated,” For all K-2 sounds prosaic, his fingers briefly squeeze Bodhi’s shoulder before he takes his hand away, grasping at the controls he’s still connected to and ripping them open.

“What are you doing?” A jet of something noxious goes off within the cockpit. The ruined controls also catch fire, the droid’s chassis audibly rattling despite all the surrounding noise, “K-2, you need to disconnect! Forget about life support –”

A great stretch of trees are fast approaching beneath them. Bodhi’s got them out of the spin, but a wing breaks away from the side of the ship with a shriek. Another volley of shots from their pursuers pummels the other wing; he wrenches them towards the ocean before it detaches similarly.

It hardly matters if they make it to the water, really – they’re falling fast enough all of their concerns are about to become moot.

“Disengaging with life support; rerouting remaining power to temporarily restore shields,” Smoke leaks out of K-2’s chassis as he twists together melting wires, “Impact in eight seconds, seven, six –”

“Shit, wait, do you mean _your_ remaining power?” Horrible suspicion claws at Bodhi as he struggles to snatch a glance of his friend, gasping to get in enough air –

They crash.

-

Time shatters into irrelevance. Reality greys and fractures.

The ship bursts like an overripe fruit, a mammoth gelatinous creature squeezing the cockpit until it opens. Long, cold clammy tentacles loop around his wrist, his neck. There’s a foreign presence in his mind and it’s ripping out pieces of him, fraying every part of him, tearing him into ragged, uneven strips –

A wall of water slams into Bodhi. He’s drowning, _drowning_ –

Somewhere Cassian and Jyn are running, climbing, climbing, falling, falling into nothing, falling into endless light. Chirrut walks calmly through a volcano of gunfire, Baze left on a crumbling precipice, looking after the other man with such a terrible expression of loss creased into his face –

The Death Star fires on a city in an underwater desert. A man yanks rough cloth over Bodhi’s head without warning; an unexpected comfort as metal fingers close around his shoulder. His vision changes abruptly – he’s sinking, the ship is sinking –

Everything is going dark.

Bodhi sees Cassian again, Jyn, the Guardians. Standing simply within that darkness, turning to face him one by one. Reaching out for him.

_“Not yet,”_ Chirrut says.

_Not yet_ , Bodhi reaches for his friends in return, strains for them frantically; strains to get away from the alien shredding his brain, and –

_Where is K-2?_

An implacable hand grabs his collar, hauling him bodily out of the open ribcage of the dead beast, and thrusts him towards the surface of the water. Bodhi goes limp even though that’s never helped him; it never made Bor Gullet stop, just as it didn’t stop when he threatened and resisted then begged and pleaded, and finally ended up just waiting for the moment when he would stop instead –

His body retains intelligence enough to kick for the dazzle of light upon the water, even if his broken mind has no idea if it is up. Does it matter?

It matters.

Bodhi kicks and splashes and struggles not to instinctively shout – he’s never been in the ocean, never wanted to, never wanted to even _see_ an ocean again after Scarif, and he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he –

He breaks through the surface. He breaks through and realises there are ships darting through the sky above them, looking for them, and –

Who is them?

_Oh_ –

“ _K-2!_ ” K-2 is nowhere to be seen. Bodhi struggles to remain afloat, retching, choking on water, gasping as he flails his arms and half sinks and kicks himself around in a clumsy circle and _he can’t see K-2_.

The weight of his clothes combined with his inability to swim drags him under again and he realises that he knows full well where the droid is.

Bodhi snatches in the most desperate breath he’s ever taken. Has no idea how to dive.

Tries anyway.

-

Going back under the water is not more terrifying than Bor Gullet, than Scarif, than the Death Star. It’s _not_.

Even if, in the moment, it feels like it is.

-

Bodhi finds K-2 deep under the water, down by the scattered wreckage of the ship. He’s inert, unresponsive until Bodhi cups his cheek, clinging onto the droid’s shoulder and fighting not to panic.

Optics flickering on, K-2 seems to struggle to focus on Bodhi for a moment, before patting him unevenly on the same shoulder as earlier. Bodhi grabs for his hand, squeezing back, and K-2 gestures downwards somewhat more jerkily than usual. His legs –

_Oh_.

They’re caught in a tangled mass of detritus from the ship, wires and unidentifiable sharp pieces caught in vital struts. Bodhi –

Bodhi needs air, damn it.

He has to flail for the surface again, shuddering when he finally makes it, lights going off in the corners of his eyes as the world blacks out for a moment, as if he’s going to pass out. He can’t –

He can’t. He _will not_ pass out.

“ _Hah – hah_ –”

When he goes to dive a second time, he discovers he also can’t bring himself to go back under the water, which is –

“Fuck,” Shaking hard, Bodhi runs his wet hands over his equally wet face, trying to push panic down from rising all over again as the action causes him to nearly slip under. His right hand spasms in the way it does when his body is responding to something so badly it disrupts the prosthetic’s power flow.

_Fuck_.

No.

No. He’s not doing this. He is _not_ leaving his friend under there. K-2 helped save him on Scarif, just as he helped an injured Bodhi save Cassian. K-2 pinpointed the place where Baze and Chirrut were about to make a desperate last stand, and got Jyn onto the ship in time, after she’d saved herself and was refusing to stop fighting.

Bodhi dives.

Clumsily kicking his way down to K-2 again slightly faster this time, he finds the droid has freed one foot, K-2 moving noticeably more sluggishly than usual, his servos seeming slow to respond. Bodhi clutches at K-2’s legs and does whatever he can to help.

They’re churning up enough of the ocean bed that visibility is soon terrible. Still, he sees K-2 roll his optics again, gesturing with increasing insistence at the surface and –

No, damn it, Bodhi’s nearly freed him! He’s not leaving _now_ , not until he’s actually succeeded at something for once in his entire kriffing life –

Not until he knows K-2 is going to make it.

That implacable metal hand closes back around his shoulder, drags him upwards and shoves him towards the surface. Because –

Oh yeah. He needs to breathe. Almost forgot, which is beyond stupid. Almost – almost – _Kriff_ , _he needs to breathe_ –

Which way is up again? K-2 practically propelled him towards the surface; how did he get so turned around?

Where does the ocean end?

It’s getting so dark – Will he see Cassian and the others again?

Bor Gullet rises up out of the depths to swallow the remaining scraps of Bodhi’s mind.

-

Conscious slams back into him an indeterminate time later.

Bodhi retches, disorientated, scrabbling at what turns out to be sand as he manages to wrench himself over to throw up what feels like endless salt water.

“ _U-ugh_ ,” His voice is almost non-existent when it’s done. He’s shaking badly enough he keeps nearly biting his tongue, spasms shooting through him as he clumsily shovels sand over the mess.

There’s nothing he can do about the mess that is the rest of him unfortunately, so he works on pushing himself up painfully until he’s seated and can look for K-2 – and finds him, lying on the sand not far from him to the right, decorated with ropy seaweed, his chassis badly scratched. The scuff marks leading up from the water imply the likelihood that the droid dragged Bodhi up away from the waves, and then collapsed.

When Bodhi goes to call out to him, his voice catches in his throat.

It’s raining a little, the kind of dull, incessant downfall that promises to go on all day. The sky is grey, the air cold, and his hair and clothes are soaked. He didn’t expect to survive. He’s not quite sure yet how to feel about the fact he did – again. He doesn’t _want_ to die, it’s not that. It’s just that his time keeps coming and coming, and –

Somehow, despite how undeserving he is, he survives.

He’d seen the others, hadn’t he, down there in the ocean and in the wreckage of the ship. Baze and Chirrut and Jyn, who had somehow all escaped Scarif and flourished after it, and Cassian, who had –

Well, Cassian had struggled for a while, although he characteristically hadn’t told anyone about it, simply becoming more and more silent and withdrawn. Lost in his own struggles, Bodhi had nonetheless come to realise something was wrong – or more so than usual, perhaps, given the harshness of much of Cassian’s life and the missions he took on – and had found K-2 had reached the same conclusion, the pair of them doing what they could for him given Cassian’s outright refusal to report his condition or see a medic, until he had regained himself in so far as to chafe and complain. After that, he had improved enough to throw himself into taking on overwhelming odds with even more determination, accompanied whenever feasible by the others in Rogue One. 

K-2 hasn’t moved or said anything yet, his optics once again off.

“K – K-2?” Tipping forwards onto his hands and knees with the intention of standing, Bodhi pants a bit and informs himself that this pale sand isn’t Scarif, that this planet is nothing like it, “K-2SO? Are you –”

_Okay_ is clearly incorrect. Bodhi coughs, wishes for a drink for all he feels like he never wants to have anything to do with water, shoves his hair out of his eyes – the tie somewhere at the bottom of the ocean – and pats his pockets in search of the knife Jyn gave him without much hope.

It’s there – that and the token Chirrut carved for the birthday Bodhi had thought no one knew of, but Cassian of all people had quietly informed the rest of Rogue One about. They had made little of it while others in the Alliance were around to Bodhi’s relief, but Cassian and K-2 had both sourced him holovids he hadn’t seen and Baze had made him spice cake, and Bodhi had spent an unexpectedly pleasant evening curled up in Baze and Chirrut’s neat small room with the rest of them, warmed by the company as much as the tea.

Bolstered by the memory – one of the very few purely good memories he has and doesn’t dare revisit too often for fear he might find it frayed around the edges – and the presence of the two gifts he has long told himself he shouldn’t risk carrying around, Bodhi navigates the space between himself and the droid.

“K-2; can you hear me?” He touches K-2’s shoulder in the place K-2 had touched his own, “We’re on land, on the beach – you’re going to hate that. You saved me.” He licks his lips. Thinks it, with almost desperate gratitude despite his earlier mixed feelings, _You saved me. Again._

His friend is cold.

Not the familiar cool of durasteel plating, but the shattering deep cold of the bottom of the ocean – K-2 crashed here in the sand then, possibly already shut down by the time he landed, and his systems have not resumed running since. Alarm kindles inside Bodhi’s chest, stifling his overworked lungs, as he recalls K-2 mentioning power, very likely his own power, using it to restore the ship’s shields in time for impact.

“You – you saved my life twice just now, didn’t you,” Bodhi brushes rainwater off his face; it’s washing away the salt at least, “You saved us both.”

“Your actions also contributed, Bodhi Rook,” K-2’s optics flicker on, the words almost lost to a screech of static before mostly evening out, “Reserve charge remaining: three percent. I am glad to see you survived without excessive harm. While it will be necessary for me to shut down again in six minutes, I predict that if you utilise my surviving antenna, you have a twenty two percent chance of creating a rudimentary one-way communication device with the internal components of your prosthetic.”

”Oh,” Bodhi realises he’s hugging himself, “I don’t have tools, but –” No, he can do this. Probably. He hopes. “I can come up with something. But K-2 –”

Bodhi extends his prosthetic hand, firming his jaw against the emotions that come with acknowledging the thing. The synthskin sticks to the metal beneath and resists peeling back, but he manages it without damaging the stuff any further than it’s already torn. Breathing as steadily as he can through his nose, Bodhi tugs at the lead the medical droids used to monitor and interact with the prosthetic while attempting to integrate it safely with his unreliable body.

There’s a failsafe that’s supposed to kick in if his worst moments threaten to overwhelm its workings – or the other way around, but his panic attacks might have actually become _worse_ since leaving medbay and finding himself with the time to realise exactly just how little Bor Gullet had left of him –

Anyway, that’s not important now.

“I don’t know if this will work, but – if you’re willing to try,” Bodhi swallows, “Do you think you could charge using this?”

“B-Bodhi,” K-2’s vocabulator fritzes, splitting into multiple tones. He seems, if anything, taken off guard, but lifts his own hand towards it with a shuddering whir of gritty servos, stopping before going so far as to actually take it. “If you are certain.” The static returns again, “It would involve me adapting the prosthetic’s systems to a small extent in order to use it as a power source. I would do my utmost to avoid it, but you may lose use of the hand.”

“Of course I’m certain,” Bodhi presses the lead into durasteel fingers – cool now to his intense relief, rather than that awful cold. He waits until K-2 takes hold of the narrow plug, “If it can help you, then –”

Then it’s worth it.

Worth having the prosthetic. He’s always tried not to think about it for the most part, finding it at least easier to deal with than his other past traumas – that is, aside from the times he’s jarred out of what little sleep he manages by phantom pains or sent into a spiral of dread that the thing will overload and shock him or give him a heart attack.

But if it means K-2 can use it to charge, then he’s _glad_ he has it.

“I believe it could help me,” K-2 almost sounds like he frowns, “However creating a communication device would increase the possibility of retrieval to –”

“We can figure something out when you’re not about to shut down from lack of power,” Bodhi interrupts a little hotly, before he catches himself, “Come on, K-2, you’re more important than that.”

“More important than _a rescue team_?” The droid stares at him. Optics still flickering, lead lax as if forgotten in his hand, “We are hardly likely to retrieve the wreckage of the ship from the bottom of the ocean, Bodhi Rook, and even then it would be impossible to repair.”

“Do you call Cassian by his full name when he’s annoying you too?” Bodhi can’t help but huff a slight laugh, “Get on and charge, will you? I can’t imagine you’re enjoying being covered in sand and seaweed, and when you’re not out of power, I can do something about that.”

“You can do something about locating a form of shelter,” K-2 winches his other hand up to prise manually at a sand-encrusted panel in his arm, “Your vital statistics are decidedly suboptimal. As you are not Cassian, I presume you don’t require me to inform you that you need water, food, warmth and rest.”

“I’ve survived worse,” Insistent in his own way, Bodhi wrenches at the buttons of his soggy regulation jacket, shrugging at it awkwardly until he’s got it half off and can proffer the cleanest patch he finds on the sleeve, “Let me?”

“All right,” K-2 waits while Bodhi wipes the sand away and then, with a glance to check there’s no objection, opens the access panel. Aware of how intently he’s being watched, he keeps his face free of a grimace, expression neutral despite his sudden uncertainty as he matches the plug to the lead with one of several ports –

Then hesitates.

Kriff. Kriff. What if he’s wrong about this? What if they’re both wrong? His heartbeat picks up and he has to fiercely instruct his fingers not to shake.

“While I have been forced to disable internal sensors, I am aware of the damage caused by my connection to the ship at the time of the crash,” There’s a sigh in K-2’s voice, “I am not organic; there is no need to ‘spare my feelings’. I am also aware of the fact my wiring is not what non-synthetic technicians ‘expect’; there is no need to inform me of this, if you are planning to.”

“I – oh no, no, I wasn’t,” Taken aback, Bodhi blinks. K-2’s obviously adjusted his own hardware at some point or perhaps Cassian has, given it barely resembles the typical wiring of an Imperial droid – let alone a Rebel one – but that hadn’t been what made him pause, “I just –”

“Then you are concerned that connecting our systems might shock you,” K-2 predicts.

“What? No,” Dragging a breath in, Bodhi shakes his head, frowning, “I’m concerned it might shock _you_. Are you – your power is so low right now. I’m – _my_ systems are erratic; there’s a failsafe, but if I panic really badly, it can affect the prosthetic. I’m sorry, I should – I should have said.” Damn it. He’s never talked about with this with anyone. The words almost choke him. “If I have an – an episode while we’re connected, then – then what –” The rest trips out of him in an airless rush, “I don’t want you to get even more hurt because of me!”

“ _Bodhi_.”

He’s never heard K-2 say his name in such a tone. Cool durasteel fingers closing gently over his good ones make him jump. Kriff, his heart is pounding. He – His lungs aren’t working so well; nausea threatening him once again.

_Kriff_.

“Close your eyes,” K-2 states calmly, “Inhale slowly. Exhale. Inhale again.”

Bodhi does, desperately at first and then, gradually, more naturally.

“That’s it,” There’s a quiet click, barely audible against the clamour inside his aching head. He hit it under the water, didn’t he. No, before they crashed? The wound stings and throbs now he belatedly remembers it. A slight tingle passes up his arm from the prosthetic; nothing more.

“You are safe, Bodhi Rook,” K-2 continues, “I will not allow anything further to harm you. I have adapted the connection and my systems are now charging. Unless I am much mistaken – which I am not – you will not lose use of your hand.” His fingers tighten around Bodhi’s, “You have my gratitude. And to answer your earlier question, seventy nine percent of the time I call Cassian by his full name when he is being particularly foolish. The rest of the time I suppose I am feeling –” His pause is fractional, “Affectionate towards him.”

“Yeah, I – I guessed as much,” Smiling despite himself, Bodhi chuckles a little unevenly. His eyelashes are damp. His hand has turned within K-2’s at some point; he’s clinging onto him.

He’s really tired of being rained on. He’s really tired, full stop.

“You are not and have never been what I would consider ‘annoying’,” K-2 announces unexpectedly. His vocabulator sounds better already, glitching less often, although there are still those multiple tones. “I cannot say the same for the vast majority of organics.”

“High praise then,” Despite everything that’s happened, Bodhi can’t help but grin. Taking an easier breath in, he wipes his face of rainwater and – and everything, and peeks at the droid.

K-2 angles his head in the way Bodhi has always suspected implies a smile.

“Have I mentioned yet that I hate this planet?” he nevertheless complains, “Sand. Saltwater. Rain. There is nothing even remotely positive about the experience whatsoever.”

“Oh I –” Wetting his lips, Bodhi looks around them properly for the first time. The air is empty of enemy ships overhead, the cloud cover perhaps starting to thin out. He’s sure the rain is a little lighter, although it could be just wishful thinking.

Tall dark trees stand behind them, an obvious promise of shelter regardless how little experience he has with forests. Fire too, if he can figure out what to do if they’ll ignite when wet, or perhaps K-2 will know. There should be fresh water and possibly there will be something growing there he can eat – or perhaps the ocean will contain fish.

And at least the rain is washing away some of the sand from K-2’s front half.

“If you say it’s not too bad, I shall be forced to revise my opinion of you,” For all K-2’s tone is dire, he laces his fingers with Bodhi’s, “The same stands for irrational comments such as ‘It could be worse’.”

“At least the company’s good?” Bodhi offers, before realising what he’s said and ducks his head, “I mean – I mean if _I_ have to get stranded, then I’m glad to – to, ah. To be stranded with you.” Damn it, his face is heating up. “Not that _you’re_ glad to be stranded w-with _me_.”

He has to turn away; clear his throat.

“While it might not be what you intended to imply,” K-2 reaches out with his other hand to touch his fingertips to Bodhi’s flushed cheek, coaxing him back into making eye contact, “The sentiment is nonetheless true.”


End file.
